offspringing; a mere temporary expedient, tending rather to increase the complaint, as eradication by trenching with the spade can alone effectually check the encroachments of runners so tenacious of life, and rapid in growth. The dyer’s broom[19] (genista tinctoria) abounds with us, and becomes a perfect encumbrance in our clay-land pastures. It is seldom eaten by cattle, except in cases of great necessity, and remains untouched, if other food be obtainable, giving a deceitful appearance of verdure to a naked pasture. It yet retains a place in some of our dispensatories; but its medicinal virtues are probably never made trial of in modern practice, the lenient assuasives of our forefathers seeming unequal to contention with the constitutions of these days. I know not any use to which it is applicable but for the dyer. Our poorer people a few years ago used to collect it by cartloads, about the month of July; and the season of “woodwaxen” was a little harvest to them: but it interfered greatly with our haymaking. Women could gain each about two shillings a day, clear of all expenses, by gathering it; but they complained that it was a very hard and laborious occupation, the plant being drawn up by the roots, which are strongly interwoven in the soil. The dyer gave them eight-pence for a hundred weight; but I fear the amount was greatly enhanced by the dishonest practice of watering the load, for the specious purpose of keeping it green; and the old woodwaxers tell me, that, without the increase of weight which the water gave the article, they should have had but little reward for their labor. Greediness here, however, as in most other cases, ruined the trade, the plant becoming so injured and stinted by repeated pullings, as to be in these parts no longer an object worth seeking for; and our farmers rather discountenance the custom, as the “green-weed” preserves and shelters at its roots a considerable quantity of coarse herbage, which in the winter and spring months is of great importance to the young cattle browsing in the pastures. The use of this dyer’s broom is to prepare woollen cloths for the reception of another color. It communicates to the article a dull yellow, which will then, by being dipped in another liquor or composition, according to the shade required, receive a green hue. Vegetable filaments, cotton, flax, &c., are very differently formed from those threads afforded by animals, as silk and wool, and are differently disposed to receive colors. The dye that will give a fine color to the one, is perhaps rejected by the other; and this plant is rarely or never used by the dyer for cotton articles. That certain natural productions receive and retain, and others reject or soon part with artificial colorings, are in some cases in consequence of the nature of the substance, and in others by reason of the conformation of the fibre; but any examination of this kind would only occasion a tedious discussion